Or not! I can't use this book because I don't have essence damn it! What is this cruel twist of fate? This is straight up a scam! Just when I thought I'll have it easy...
Calming down from the slight outburst, he started brainstorming.
Well, I guess it's not all bad. The terror thinks I can use this book as it… resonates with me. If I can catch it off guard, I might have a decent chance. This has turned out better.
Looking outside of the aperture, Kieron saw it was dark now. Perfect time to ambush the terror. But he was tired. Too tired. His bones jarred with immense pain, and eyes barely stayed open.
However, he had no choice. He painfully got up, leaning on his sword as a crunch and quietly walked out of the aperture. He summoned the book in advance and flipped through the pages. He still couldn't read it. His eyes had gone partially blind due to the thunder strike earlier. The parts that hadn't gone blind, were blurred.
He knew the longer he waits, the worse his condition would get, so he had to act fast.
Heh, blind verses blind. Cassie should be here.
Soon, he forced himself to run. He saw the terror from the corner of his eyes, sitting on the throne again, seemingly asleep.
Keiron stopped and dismissed the memories. Then slowly, he took steps towards it. Each step was a whisper against the earth, careful and deliberate, as though even the shadows might betray them. The air felt heavier the closer they crept, thick with the scent of danger, metallic, electric, alive. Silence wasn't just a choice; it was survival, pressed into the bones like instinct. Muscles coiled beneath the skin, tuned to stillness, breath held like a secret.
Soon, Kieron had reached behind the throne, unfortunately as he summoned his sword back, it scraped against the throne, creating a very light sound, but enough to wake the terror up.
Shit…
The terror flew back ten meters in an instant, with a single jump. Kieron followed without hesitation, through the immense pain.
The injured terror swung its fist towards him. The punch tore through the air like a thunderbolt unchained, too fast to see, too brutal to stop. It didn't travel so much as appear, a blur given shape by force and fury.
Yet, Kieron had managed to sway it. Afterwards, he jumped in, closing the distance, thrusting his sword into the wound, nearly severing it.
The terror faltered, nearly giving up on its life already. But it didn't, it rose back up.
Of course, it can never be easy!
The terror launched another puppetry attack at Kieron while Kieron summoned the book as a bluff. The terror faltered again, seemingly disturbed, but it didn't stop, held Kieron tightly and increased the intensity of puppetry. It almost started to work as well. However again, the wall appeared.
This time Kieron was close to the terror, so he saw, the terror seemed to get damaged by trying to puppet him. Capitalizing on this chance, Kieron broke free from the tight embrace of the knight, climbed it through its armor and struck his sword with immense precision, despite the state of his body.
The sword pierced the strong armor and reached something that felt like flesh. But it was too strong for the thrust to be very effective.
Sobering up slightly, the giant terror threw him off, the sword still stuck in the neck. Kieron hurriedly dismissed and resummoned the sword, running towards it again, this time striking the joins where the armor was weak, starting with legs.
The Knight couldn't avoid the first few strikes due to being massively disoriented. It fell to its knees due to getting the tendons damaged.
Brutally, rightfully so, Kieron didn't stop. He bombarded the knight with strikes, most were ineffective, some causing the knight to bleed more and more.
"DIE! JUST FUCKING DIE!"
He moved with relentless fury, as if his aspect doesn't exist, driving the blade again and again into the towering figure before them. Each strike was a scream given edge, a desperate hymn of steel and rage.
The armor had now fell apart. Revealing the mad female figure beneath. The terror was still alive, just barely. Not alive enough to retaliate. All it could do was… get killed.
The sword carved through muscles of the terror like fire through dry leaves, tearing arcs of crimson into the air with every blow. Blood fountained from the wounds, hot, thick, and furious, splattering the ground, the throne, the ruins, and Kieron's own face. Eventually, the terror had finally given in to death.
***
It stopped fighting, not with weakness, but with a strange, aching calm, as if the body had finally listened to what the soul had long whispered. The tension left their limbs like water spilling from a broken cup, and its eyes, once wild with fear or defiance, grew still, and unblinking. The world around the terror blurred into a quiet hush, colors dimming, sounds folding inward like distant echoes underwater.
It didn't truly collapse; it just released itself, like a final breath exhaled into the dark. There was no cry, no last plea, only a weary surrender, and the soft, solemn grace of someone who had looked into the eyes of the end... and stopped looking away.
***
The next second, its body ruptured, torn apart into pieces, as if it had self-destructed.
Blood, viscera and severed limbs fell on the floor in a crimson torrent. Just like that, the horrible creature was dead.
Kieron blinked in silence. He stood as if the world had tilted sideways, eyes wide and searching, caught between disbelief and the quiet terror of his own masterclass at perseverance.
Now, he was alone in the ruined palace. The great hall was dark and silent.
And then the Spell whispered:
[You have slain an awakened terror, Vivienna of the Thunder.]
[Wake up, Caster! Your nightmare is over.]
[Prepare for appraisal…]